


let this whole town hear your knuckles crack

by feverbeats



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Then you're aware that he was born a woman?" The officer doesn't look like he's about to laugh, which is a plus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let this whole town hear your knuckles crack

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: transphobia.

**Jim**

Somewhere in the universe, there are people transitioning between genders in a matter of weeks, beings getting married in all configurations, aliens with no gender at all—

In Iowa, Tina Kirk is six years old and sobbing. Tears mean he’s angry, not sad, but no one will believe that. They don’t believe much of what he says.

This isn’t the twentieth century anymore, but this isn’t California, either. This isn’t Massachusetts. A little girl can’t call herself James without getting the shit beaten out of her by a few people, both at school and at home.

Somewhere in the universe, James Tiberius Kirk knows things are different.

*

Jim is covered in his own blood. That means it’s a weekend.

This fight, like most of them lately, got started when Jim made a move on some gorgeous girl in a bar when her boyfriend was three feet away. At least this time he didn’t get called a dyke for his trouble. Instead he got the shit beaten out of him, which as far as he’s concerned is _great_.

Now he’s on his motorcycle, going fifteen miles an hour above the speed limit as he roars out of town, away from everything. His knuckles are split and they ache. Nothing’s ever felt so good. For a few hours, with the wind against his skin and nothing but the stars above him, he can pretend he’s getting out of here.

When Captain Pike finds him, he’s bleeding again. Same general situation, same ragged leather jacket, same anger and lack of self-preservation instinct.

But then Pike says, “You’re George Kirk’s kid. Starfleet could use men like you.” That’s different.

Jim opens his mouth. “I’m not so sure about that, sir.” His voice usually gives him away.

“Son,” says Pike, “I dare you to do something that would’ve made your old man proud.”

James tries to harden something inside himself so he doesn’t react, but all he wants to do is melt. He has no idea what his father would have thought of him, but he likes to think he’d accept his angry, volatile, fucked-up son.

*

Jim starts hormones almost as soon as he joins the academy. He manages to get by faking it with his voice until then, and amazingly, people either don’t notice or _don’t care_. And even more amazingly, he’s doing pretty damn well. He gets good grades (“ _Great_ grades,” his newly acquired best friend, an angry southern man who has no idea about Jim Kirk’s Gender Issues, tells him), he makes friends with everyone, and he has a natural talent for leadership. Which is a good thing, because he’s still very bad at taking orders.

Jim mostly keeps his mouth shut about said Gender Issues. Most of the students (especially the girls) know, but they have more important prejudices to nurture, like the fact that Starfleet’s started admitting aliens. The med staff mostly knows, because they have to. Some people, Jim has discovered, do not. He finds that out when Pike hands him a student ID with an M on it.

Jim looks at him questioningly. “So, you do know that I’m—”

“Not as far as Starfleet Command is concerned,” Pike returns. “They don’t know and they don’t need to. This is the one kind of trouble you’re _not_ seeking out. Let’s keep it that way.”

For the first time in Jim’s life, he feels as if the whole world could be his. No, more than that. The stars.

*

Gaila is _awesome_. She puts out on the first date and does things in bed Jim hasn’t even _heard_ of. She’s also got a great personality, and he’s not just saying that. She can drink him under the table and she doesn’t put up with bullshit.

Her main failing is her choice in roommates. Gorgeous, brilliant, thoroughly unpleasant Uhura never fails to be underfoot when Jim is just trying to have a lot of sex with Gaila.

“Uhura, hey.” This is the sixth time she’s been there doing homework when Jim’s been trying to have a date.

“Mm,” she says. She doesn’t look up from her linguistics book.

Jim sticks his hip out and leans on her desk. “I think Gaila and I are getting married. Probably.”

Uhura snorts. Her eyes get ridiculously pretty when she’s amused. “Are you kidding? Neither one of you is the type. And you’re not my type, so don’t start.”

All Jim wants in the world is for this girl to love him. At least today. “Gaila clearly isn’t giving me a good enough recommendation, then. Does she not talk about me? Because she should talk about me. In bed.”

Uhura stands up and slides her book back onto the shelf with a sigh. “I can see you’re not going to let me study. She’ll be back in a few minutes and then you can _leave_. And for the record, she’s told me more than enough about what you’re like in bed.”

Jim feels panic hit him like a knife in the gut. He can only bluff for so long before he’s reminded that some people _do_ care about—About stuff that doesn’t matter, _shouldn’t_ matter, and he really shouldn’t have opened this subject in the first place. “Huh,” he says. “So, yeah. Not your type.”

Uhura crosses her arms and looks at him with an unreadable expression. “I don’t like dicks,” she says.

Jim laughs and says, purely out of nerves, “Well, don’t you worry, sugar, I don’t have—”

“Let me rephrase: I don’t like jackasses.” She smiles. “And besides, I’m not going to hit on my roommate’s boyfriend.”

“Fuck-buddy at _most_ ,” Jim says defensively, but he feels a thousand pounds lighter.

 **McCoy**

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap._ Jim’s fingernails skid across the surface of his desk in no discernible rhythm McCoy can pick out, which does nothing to improve his mood.

“Jim,” he hisses, leaning forward and whacking Jim’s shoulder. Class hasn’t started yet, but they’re taking a test today, and McCoy isn’t going to risk getting yelled at.

Jim twists awkwardly in his seat. “Huh?”

McCoy grits his teeth. “Stop. The goddamn. Tapping.”

Instead of laughing, which would by his usual reaction to a perfectly reasonable request, Jim’s face goes still. “I can’t focus. This is driving me seriously insane. My fucking binder pinches. I can’t take tests like this.” His voice is clipped in a way McCoy hasn’t heard before.

“Your what?” McCoy asks. He scans Jim’s desk for signs of, well, a _binder_. There’s nothing but an (uncompleted) review sheet.

“Binder.” Jim turns back to his desk and taps his nails against the edge again. “For the binding of breasts. Honestly, Bones, you’d think a doctor would know that. Not that you’re a doctor yet. But if you’re working on that, you might want to consider finding out some stuff about trans people. Just saying.” He’s back to his usual stream-of-consciousness rambling, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off his desk.

“What,” McCoy says flatly. “Jim, come on, you’re not telling me you’re—This is a joke, right?”

“Test time!” Jim says brightly, but it sounds incredibly forced.

McCoy can’t focus on the test and ends up leaving several questions blank.

After class, Jim jets out of the room at top speed, probably trying to catch up with whatever girl he has his sights set on this week. He does things like that. McCoy catches up with him by the cafeteria with no girl in sight, though.

“Jim,” McCoy says.

“Bones!” Jim gives him a brittle, slightly manic smile. At McCoy’s insistent look, he says, “All right, look.” He doesn’t continue.

McCoy is looking. He’s looking at Jim in a whole new light, trying to figure out what the hell clues he’s been missing. Transsexuals are more and more common these days, which is why he even knew what the hell Jim was talking about, but not where McCoy’s from. He’s having trouble adjusting to a lot of things in Starfleet, and he’s been told that some of his views are outdated, but he never thought it would _matter_. “Go on,” he says finally.

Jim shifts his shoulders, looking uncomfortable, something McCoy has never seen before. “I don’t exactly make it a huge secret, Bones.”

“Well, you never told me!” McCoy realizes he’s shouting, and a few cadets glance over on their way to and from lunch or class. This is too fucking strange, and also, Jim _lied_ to him.

Jim glances at the ceiling as if there’s a flesh-sucking alien waiting to drop onto his face. “Huh. Yeah. I didn’t. Look, I was paying attention when you called that cadet queer the first week we were here.”

McCoy flushes, wishing they weren’t doing this in public. Jim wouldn’t be Jim if he didn’t want to make a production of things, though. “No, I didn’t mean—Well, I didn’t mean it like that. I . . . It came out wrong. I’m not . . .” He’s really _not_ an asshole, at least he doesn’t think so, but sometimes these things slip out.

“But sometimes you are,” Jim says. He leans against the doors, blocking people’s way into the cafeteria and looking unreadable, which is unusual. “We okay? I can cover the basics. Not a girl, haven’t had surgery, have had hormones, don’t really feel like talking about it.”

“And what about girls?” McCoy asks, faintly horrified.

Jim just blinks at him. “I like having sex with girls and girls like having sex with me. That’s pretty much it. Look, are we okay?”

 _No,_ , McCoy wants to say, _Because my best friend—my_ only _friend here is secretly a girl._

Looking back, McCoy is always grateful he never expressed that sentiment to Jim. It takes him a couple of months of looking at Jim differently to realize that he shouldn’t be. Jim is still reckless and smart and slutty and ambitious. Jim is still Jim, unfortunately. McCoy’s life might be simpler if Jim were someone else

*

A few years, a series of insane events, and a starship later:

Jim kisses like—not like McCoy expected. He whines and twists and throws his head back and lets McCoy leaves whatever marks he wants to. He bangs his head on the wall and presses McCoy’s palm flat against his throat.

This is not what McCoy thought would happen.

*

“Fuck, Bones, _fuck_.”

There are three times McCoy is treated to this particular linguistic delight. The first is when Jim is staring at a new planet, the second is when he’s upset, and the third is—well, not anyone’s business. The tone of voice and presence of clothing suggests the second option. McCoy is just using his diagnostic skills, of course.

“ _Bones_ ,” Jim hisses. “I’m fucking bleeding.”

The usual complaint, then. “What is it this time?” McCoy sighs. He can’t see any visible blood, which is unusual.

“Oh.” Jim actually stops for a second, the perpetual motion machine put on pause. “Yeah, I’m not wounded in the line of duty.”

Jim’s been wounded more times in the bedroom than in the so-called “line of duty,” but McCoy lets it drop. “Then what the hell’s wrong?”

Jim glances around furtively, as if it’s just occurred to him that they’re standing in the middle of a hallway, crew members bustling around them on the way to their assigned stations. “We’re talking, like—” He lowers his voice. “Period stuff. Menstruation stuff. Lady problems.”

McCoy holds up his hands, because he knows Jim’s going to keep going if he’s not stopped. “Okay, I got it. Well, that shouldn’t be happening, right?”

“Right.” Jim crosses his arms and rocks on his heels, the perfect parody of nerves. “I’ve been on hormones for—God, okay, years now. This is weird.” He gives McCoy a half-hearted grin. “I love weird.”

The one time Jim doesn’t love weird, of course, is when it comes to things like this.

*

They end up having to go through a few Starfleet doctors, and after Jim gets fixed up (turns out it was a dud batch of hormones; something that happens too often while traveling to backwater planets), there’s a whole new mess of trouble to take on. Turns out Starfleet Command didn’t know about Jim, and weirdly, it turns out they _care_. Even McCoy, from a corner of America worse than Jim’s when it comes to breaks in routine, doesn’t think about that part of Jim’s life anymore.

Jim is sitting, white-faced and silent, in the hall outside the debriefing room where McCoy is doing his best not to shout at two officers.

“And were you aware of Captain Kirk’s medical history?”

McCoy bristles. If there’s one thing he hates, its Starfleet higher-ups, for all that he’s supposed to be doing whatever they want. He joined Starfleet to get away from his life, not to serve and protect whatever value system these bastards believe in. “I’m his doctor. I’m pretty sure I know damn near everything about him.”

“Then you’re aware that he was born a woman?” The officer doesn’t look like he’s about to laugh, which is a plus.

“I don’t think he’d put it that way, but yeah,” McCoy snarls. He’s been told that this is stardate-unacceptable-prejudices and while he can’t see the problem with things like _born a woman_ , he knows it incenses Jim, and that’s enough.

The officer nods. “I see. You really should have reported this.”

If this were five years ago, McCoy might have. It’s not five years ago.

  
 **Jim**   


“James Tiberius Kirk.”

Jim looks up from where he’s slumped in the gray chair in the hallway. You’d think Starfleet could afford some more comfortable furniture. Bones has been talking to those two assholes in uniform for hours now. “Sir?”

Pike smiles. “I hear you’ve been causing a stir. _Again_.” He flips the controls on his chair and comes close enough to lay a hand on Jim’s arm.

The hell of it is, Pike was right all those years ago, and this is the one stir Jim never wanted to cause. Let him get in trouble for breaking the rules and disobeying orders, not for how he was born. “Yeah. Guess they had to find out eventually. What are you doing here?”

“I flew in to let them know that you weren’t the one who falsified your documents. They’re a little wary about getting me in trouble these days, so I’ll be fine,” he says off Jim’s look. “But it sounds like Doctor McCoy might need some bailing out, too. His temper’s worse than yours.”

Jim laughs as relief washes through him. He doesn’t have the energy for this fight right now, and if Bones and Pike want to fight it for him, maybe he won’t feel too guilty. It’s not like he hasn’t saved their asses enough times for this not to count against him.

It’s only another twenty minutes before the two officers come back out with a mutinous-looking Bones between them. The officers look exhausted.

“Are we done here?” Pike asks sharply.

Both the officers snap to attention. “Admiral Pike. Yes, sir, I think we are. It’s just a breach of regulation we had to get to the bottom of. We like a full and accurate medical history, especially for a crew that gets itself into so many medical disasters . . .”

“His doctor knows,” Pike says.

Bones squeezes Jim’s shoulder and mutters something inaudible and probably obscene under his breath.

“Then we’re done,” one of the officers says, glancing at Jim out of the corner of his eye.

“You know,” the other one says, turning to him, “You could have made a name for yourself as the first female starship captain to do a whole plethora of things.”

Jim laughs. “Baby, if I were worried about making a name for myself as the first whatever, I’d tell everyone I don’t have a dick.”

Pike’s mouth twists like he’s trying very hard not to laugh.

*

The hard, part, actually, is returning to an Enterprise where his whole crew knows. Uhura knew, of course, and Bones, but that was all. Jim never wanted trouble that shouldn’t be trouble. Most of the crew is too cautious or polite to say anything, but Janis still looks at him the same way she used to when he makes his way to the bridge, so that’s something.

When he hits the bridge, though, he runs out of cautious and polite people.

“Captain,” Chekov says, wide-eyed and eager, “If Starfleet is not prepared to leave you alone, we can all fight for you. What they did—forgive me, but it was wrong.” He’s at least pausing for breath and to think, briefly, these days.

Jim grins. “Not necessary, Chekov. But thanks.”

Uhura nods to him from her post. She still doesn’t want to sleep with him, but she’s got his back. He gets that now. “Everything’s been quiet enough here.”

“Captain, forgive my confusion, but I fail to understand.”

Jim groans. “Spock, Spock, Spock. Why are you so difficult? Starfleet’s just giving me hell, like they always do.”

Spock raises an eyebrow. “But you are . . . Vulcans have no concept of what you’re describing. What Uhura has told me. Your body is a woman’s body. I have difficulty seeing how you—”

Jim sighs sharply. “Look, I just _feel_ like a—Oh.”

Spock’s face does something complicated, something that probably would have been a smile on someone else. “Indeed.”

Jim slumps in his chair. “I give up, then. It’s not a concept you’re going to understand.”

Uhura, without turning around from her station, says, “Spock, why don’t you go compile the data on the readings we got from Daktar 6 and think about empathy?”

Now Spock does something that couldn’t be anything but a smile, albeit a very small one. “Perhaps I will.” He nods to Jim and begins to gather his equipment.

“This isn’t gonna be weird, right?” Sulu asks, twisting in his seat to look at Jim.

Jim slumps further, telling himself he’s captain and he’s not afraid of anything. “Doesn’t have to be.”

Sulu nods. “Then it’s not.”

*

A few hours later, they’re off on a course for Daktar 6, a planet that sounds as medically disastrous as any of the others they usually wind up on, and Jim is in the engine room getting drunk with Scotty. Scotty doesn’t care about the trans bullshit; he’s in love with a ship.

The low hum of the engine is almost enough to calm Jim’s nerves. “What a day,” he says needlessly.

Scotty nods and slings an arm around Jim. “Aye. But we’re in the air again. That’s what happens. Starfleet makes a habit of getting in people’s business.”

Jim shuts his eyes and leans on Scotty. “Yeah. Guess you’d know about that.” He takes another drink and lets it settle into his bones while the stars open up all around them.

He used to drive his motorcycle for hours and when it ran out of gas, he’d kick it and hit it until his knuckles bled. Now he’s drunk on Scotty’s rum in the engine room of his very own Starship. So, the message is that life is weird.

**Author's Note:**

> I am not satisfied with this! Because I knew what story I wanted to tell (Kirk has trouble with Starfleet because of trans stuff), but then I realized that story didn’t make sense of tell, because presumably that wouldn’t be such a huge deal that far in the future? So mostly it’s a story about some minor falsified documentation annoying some people. YOU’RE WELCOME.


End file.
